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Pure As Pond Ice likes to advertise itself as a nonprofit that is "creating a healthier Detroit for youth by using hockey as a tool for life success."

It's a motto that has made the Midtown-based organization $1,000 richer now that it has won the Tweet Award from this year's Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition. Pure As Pond Ice, plans to use that money to help launch its first after-school hockey program for youth in Detroit this fall/winter.

"We would like to create thriving communities that revolve around hockey," says Timothy Hooker, co-founder of Pure As Pond Ice. "We would like to create a hockey travel league in the city."
Pure As Pond Ice was co-founded by local college students and hockey enthusiasts at the Blackstone LaunchPad program at Wayne State University. It first started as a way to create a scholarship fund and then help collect hockey equipment for underprivileged youth in the Motor City. Today it's raising $18,000 to create an after-school hockey program. It's working with Think Detroit PAL to make the three-day program a reality.

"We are a social entrepreneurs using hockey as a vehicle for life success through building youth hockey communities," Hooker says.